Architecture, history and horchaterias: the "beach of Madrid" is more than just sunshine and sailboats.
For many, Valencia is the Spain of fable. On a broad plain, patchworked with orange groves and rice paddies, is the city where El Cid faced the Moors and communists battled Franco, the birthplace of paella and those ambassadorial Spanish citrus fruits. Valencia wears this rich history on its back like a multicoloured coat, from its battle-scarred walls to its wealth of well-preserved gothic architecture, with elements of baroque, Romanesque, renaissance, art deco and Moorish building styles.
Yet it’s increasingly difficult to view Spain’s mercantile third city solely through the haze of Spanish history. Valencia is also a Mediterranean port and in June 2007 hosted the 32nd America’s Cup sailing challenge.
As Barcelona and Bilbao before it, Valencia is in the grip of a cultural renaissance – answering Bilbao’s Guggenheim museum and Barcelona’s Olympic Port with the futurist white curves of the City of Arts and Sciences and angular new builds of the Port America’s Cup, which scallop the deep blue waters and bruised magenta sunsets of the Med.
In Spain, Valencia is celebrated as a gracious host. Dubbed the “beach of Madrid” due to its popularity as a summertime getaway for the landlocked residents of the Spanish capital, Valencia is a notable Euro clubbing destination and the home of March’s Las Fallas – a five-day festival featuring fireworks and wax puppets.
The biggest annual party in a party-loving nation, Las Fallas is said to date from the 12th century, when Valencian furniture makers (still a key industry, along with ceramics and agriculture) set fire to wood shavings as an offering to patron saint Joseph, the “greatest carpenter of all”. These days the incendiary antics are of epic proportions, with two weeks of brass bands, feasting, corridas (bullfights), pyrotechnics and free-flowing beer.
Floods and war have been cruel to Valencia, but the city routinely picks itself up with enviable panache. In 1957 the Turia River burst its banks and flooded the city. General Franco’s subsequent – and brutal – flood management plan dammed the river mouth and left the city carved in two by an arid valley. The Valencians were determined to reclaim the space in style.
Today the remarkable Turia Gardens run the length of the city. With their squat olive groves, misting fountains, exotic flowerbeds and children’s playgrounds, the gardens are where Valencians come to play and exercise, and tourists, in their ever-increasing numbers, to stroll and gaze enviously on.
This country is the playground of Europe. In post-millennial Spain, with the iron rule of former dictator Franco receding into the dark annals of history, life is about having fun – and paella pan-sized helpings of it. Perhaps nowhere encapsulates this rebirth more than Valencia. Here they call it la movida, a renaissance of life. It would be hard to sum it up any better.
Stay
Holiday Inn Valencia
Alameda 38.
Las Arenas Balneario Resort
Calle Eugenia Vines 22-24.
Hotel Neptuno
Paseo de Neptuno 2.
Eat
Local favourite dishes include: all I pebre (eels in a piquant sauce); impossibly more-ish papas (fried potato chips); horchata (a milk-like drink made from ground tigernut); arròs negre (a rice dish blackened with squid ink); and the divine agua de Valencia, an alcoholic cocktail of the freshly squeezed juice of local oranges with cava (Spanish sparkling wine) and Cointreau. But, of course, Valencia’s main culinary export is paella. Served with an emphasis on meat – chicken, rabbit or fish – the aromatic rice dish is the Valencian Sunday lunch and every Valencian mama whips up her own not-to-be-bettered recipe. Eat it in the middle of the day (the late Valencian lunch between 2pm and 5pm). Avoid paella joints with gaudy photography outside (these bespeak inferior frozen paella).
La Pepica
El Paseo Neptuno 6-8, La Playa de las Arenas.
+34 96 371 0366.
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Raco del Turia
Carrier Ciscar 10.
+34 96 395 1525.
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La Sucursal
Guillém de Castro 118.
+34 96 374 6665.
Restaurant Submarino de l’Oceanografic
City of Arts and Sciences, Junta de Murs I Valls.
+34 96 197 5565.
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Los Patos
Calle del Mar 28.
+34 96 392 1522.
Ca’Sento
Calle Méndez Nuñes 17.
+34 96 330 1775.
Horchaterias
No trip to Valencia would be complete without sampling an early-evening horchata. Made from ground tigernut seasoned with cinnamon, horchata has its roots in Moorish Valencia. Drink it with the traditional accompaniment of doughy fried fartons (elongated doughnuts) in one of Valencia’s famous horchaterias. Avenida de la Horchata is a street of horchaterias in the suburbs.
Horchateria El Siglo
11 Plaça Santa Catalina.
+34 96 391 8466.
If you like it strong, sweet and served with a side of horchata ice-cream.
Horchateria de Santa Catalina
Plaza Santa Catalina.
+34 96 391 2379.
For a less intense flavour.
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Nightlife
Valencians, as all Spaniards, are passionate advocates of a sleepless night out on the town and la marcha (nightlife) in Valencia is particularly notorious – although it has calmed since its 1980s heyday, when revellers would club for 48 continuous hours every weekend. Misbehaviour begins late, so don’t even think of walking into a bar before 10pm or a club before 2am.
In the cooler months, head first to the bohemian bars of Barrio del Carmen; in summer to the beachfront bars of Playa de la Malvarrosa.
Cafe de Bous
Calle Xativa 1, Plaza de Toros de Valencia.
+34 96 351 1850.
Cafe de las Horas
Calle del Conde de Almódovar 1.
+34 96 391 7336.
La Indiana
Calle San Vicente, Martir 95.
+34 96 384 5051.
Café Madrid
Calle de la Abadía de San Martín 10.
+34 96 385 0330.
Johnny Maracas
Calle Caballeros 39.
+34 96 395 266.
Las Animas
Pizarro 31.
+34 96 394 2948.
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Do new Valencia
La Ciudad de las Artes y de las Cièncias
Autopista de Saler.
+34 90 210 0031.
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Port America's Cup
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Do old Valencia
Catedral Seu
Plaza de la Reina.
+34 96 391 8127.
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Plaza de la Almoina
Plaza de la Almoina.
+34 96 394 1417.
El Museo de las Fallas
Plaza de Monteolivete 4.
+34 96 352 5478.
Museo Nacional de Ceramica
Calle Poeta Querol 2.
+34 96 351 6392.
Tips
All of Valencia’s museums and galleries are free on Saturday evenings and Sundays. Make sure you visit Iglesia del Patriarca for the Gregorian chant, sung daily, as it has been for 400 years, by monks clad in 16th-century-style robes.
Shop
The grand 1920s Mercado Central on the Plaza del Mercado in the heart of Valencia makes shopping for basic foodstuffs a real treat. Domed by a stained-glass ceiling, the market is a riot of stalls punting wares as various as fruits, saffron, strung-up chickens and suitcase-sized packs of paella rice to haggling locals. Another market, the Mercado de Colón, is a modern extravaganza housing cafes and fine food shops; or try the quirky open-air lace, silver and ceramics market in Plaza Redonda, where women sit knitting in the lazy summer heat.
Seek out more of Valencia’s famous pottery and handicrafts at Nela (Calle San Vicente 2, +34 96 392 3023) and Taller Artesania Yuste (Plaza del Miracle del Mocadoret 5, +34 96 371 8713).
For mainstream, visit Spanish department store El Corte Inglés, Callé Colon, Calle Don Juan de Austria and Plaza de Ayuntamiento. For cutting-edge fashion, Tonuca (Calle Felix Pizcueta 20, +34 96 394 0555) is the ready-to-wear brand of celebrated local designer Tonuca Belloch-Burguera.
For something a little different, Maison Parfum (Carrer Conde de Salvatierra 25, +34 96 394 0692) is a funky perfume shop with an interior reminiscent of a high-class spa offering daring scents such as essence of cut grass; and the fine chocolate shop Xocoa (San Vicente 7, +34 96 351 7739) sells devilry such as thyme-flavoured chocolate bonbons and candied, chocolate-dipped Valencia orange slices.
View Maison
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Source: Qantas The Australian Way April 2007